Bum Genuis - Choices for Every Stage

It's no surprise to anyone who uses cloth nappies that they have a ton of worldwide patents under their belt, which quite simply make them so reliable and so good. There is also a wide selection to suit every choice, budget and requirement. From the top of the range Elemental AIO (all in one nappy), which has thirsty organic cotton at its core, to the most popular one size pocket nappy which comes with microfiber inserts.

The flip potty trainer pants are good and will last up to 50lbs, suiting many children who really struggle to potty train. They also have newborn nappies, called littles which will suit newborn babies from 5lbs and are real cute!. All of their nappies have snap closures now, having discontinued their hook and loop (velcro) options, as it is not as durable as snaps, and their patented stretchy tabs will ensure they provide the perfect fit on your baby.

The bumGenius Organic Cotton Washable wipes, much more effective and kinder to the skin and the environment than disposable wipes. The bumGenius Elemental nappy, super absorbent with 6 layers of organic cotton, trim on your baby and one size fits from birth to potty. The Freetime is a best seller, it's a very simple cloth nappy to use. No prep, quick drying and very absorbent. They also have a range of real nappy accessories like wet bag which is great for nappies and the smaller ones is great for reusable sanitary wear. They also do a range of liners and inserts and hemp babies nappy boosters, organic mats and reusable sanitary wear!

Not sure which bumGenius is the best bumGenius nappy for you?

Fill out our nappy questionnaire if you would like tailored advice on which nappies would suit your needs. Everyone one of our staff have used cloth nappies and are highly trained and can get a tailored solution for you, we love giving advice and helping families find the best nappy system and nappy kit for them. If you are worried about the extra work involved with using real nappies, modern day machines make the laundry aspect quite easy and you can tumble dry bumGenius. Nappy rash will not increase with real nappy usage, and you can use most nappy rash cream on your nappies as long as they do not contain zinc oxide, and use paper liners to protect the fabric from the cream. When going out and about you can put your soiled nappies in reusable nappy bags. So ditch the disposable diapers now and start building your washable nappy stash!

Why we Love BumGenius nappies and we think you will love bumGenius nappies as well!:

• Natural Fibres in the elemental range

• Kind to the environment - no more disposable nappies

• Easy to use

• Cost-effective

• Super reliable! No more leaking nappies.

For your nappy kit, we recommend about 20-25 nappies. The exact number of nappies depends on your choices and your drying conditions. If you choose to go with organic nappies, which take longer to dry, you will need more nappies. If you choose to go with stay dry nappies, which are quick drying, you may need fewer nappies. If your baby is helpful and poos just once a day you will need fewer nappies. If your baby is less helpful and poos every 20 minutes you will need more nappies! 

In your nappy kit, we would also recommend nappy boosters, regardless of which nappy system you go for. We love hemp babies little weeds as reusable nappy boosters, they are very flexible and very absorbent. 8-10 nappy boosters are ideal in a nappy kit.

Also in your nappy kits make sure you have a wet bag for soiled nappies and a free wet bag for out and about. One wet bag is never enough! In the house, you can use a wet bag for storage rather than a bucket. After you have potty trained these products still have a useful life as swim nappies or bags for swimming or even for wet clothing.

Remember we do free nappy demos every Friday in our cloth nappy shop in Newry. (We also do baby carrier demos every Thursday! If you are in Northern Ireland you can avail of the free nappy trial run by the Nappy Library in Armagh, who post out. Several councils pay for nappy trial for you, and also offer cash back when you switch to reusable cloth nappies. These trials are great for newborn babies until they grow into one size nappies better. 

Who are bumGenius - The Story Behind the Brand

I have been very privileged to have been part of the bumGenius story from the very very beginning, from day one and it's been an amazing story.

bumGenius is owned by Jenn and Jimmy Labit. They also own Cottonbabies, the online natural baby shop and this is really where their story began. Jenn and Jimmy were computer programmers when they got married. When their eldest child, Andrew, came along they suddenly found themselves both made redundant with a newborn baby. To say money was tight was an understatement.

A group of Jenns online friends (one of which is a great friend of mine, and my introduction to Jenn) clubbed together to make things easier for the young family and sent them a load of prefolds to help out. At that time, each week Jenn had to make the decision at the grocery store to either buy food or disposables for her baby, there wasn’t enough money for both. This humbleness has always stayed with Jenn and why, today, she is so passionate about helping all families access cloth nappies. Jenn was also sent a Maya woven wrap to carry Andrew about in.

Jenn was regularly stopped by people and asked about the wrap and soon enough she realised there was a business opportunity. She started carrying business cards and selling the wrap. Every time someone asked, she would give them a business card. Everytime she sold something online, she would include 5 business cards. From that simple idea the story of Cottonbabies evolved.

The early days were hectic as each day, Jenn & Jimmy, would struggle to the local post office to ship their orders. Their excellent product range and customer service, something they are still known for today, meant their business soon flourished and cloth nappy sales were taking off.

Frustrated with some of the current options, Jenn developed her Hemp Babies product line first. These were hemp and organic cotton inserts for nappies, designed to make them last longer, and they really did! My friend (mentioned above), told me to try one, and boom, I was hooked. I was Jenns first European wholesale customer and within a few months she asked me to take over ‘distribution’. Whilst this sounded very lofty, at the time it meant me and one other Finnish customer. But it soon flourished as word of the great inserts spread.

Then Jenn and her friend Rebekah put their minds together. The story is they sat in a room for 3 days until they came up with the perfect nappy. From that the bumGenius pocket 1.0 was born and Jenn sent me a trial one.

I remember being so impressed when I had my youngest, at 2 days old the first bumGenius nappy arrived in Europe for him to try. It fitted him perfectly and it also fitted his brother who was 18 months older than him perfectly. I was so impressed! I knew right then that bumGenius would turn into the huge brand it was as this was the first time a nappy fitted this age gap perfectly.

I went in big, on my first wholesale order, I ordered… 12 nappies! Within 2 years I was ordering container loads each month as word of mouth recommendations meant bumGenius sales skyrocketed.

What made them so unique, and so good, was all the extras Jenn invented. Like the 3 x 3 snappers making them truly onesize and adjustable (their patent but sadly copied worldwide now), the stretchy elastic tabs - again this is the real reason bumGenius work so well, they adjust brilliantly to fit every baby.

That is the quick story behind the brand, of course I could tell you 100 more stories… working with bumGenius for 15 years has been an amazing journey! Watching them grow from that tiny startup to the huge international company they are today is just inspiring.

Where is bumGenius made?

bumGenius nappies are made in St.Louis, Missouri USA in the Cotton Babies factory. Some of their microfiber inserts are made in China.

bumGenius has been made in a number of factories worldwide & the story of how they are now made in Missouri is quite an inspiring story!

Jenn Labit, the owner of Cottonbabies who make bumGenius, started the bumgenius brand in December 2003. Herself and her friend, Rebekah, decided they had enough of poor fitting, not perfect nappies and clubbed heads together until they came up with the perfect design. Once they had prototyped the life out of it, they then set about finding a factory to do it.

One thing to comment on about bumGenius nappies is the thought and detail which goes into each nappy. They literally go through about 50 prototypes on each nappy as they fine tune, fine tune, fine tune. It’s what sets them apart from other manufacturers, the sheer attention to detail. Every single stitch is considered, yes seriously, every single stitch. I remember sitting in on a meeting between Jenn & Rebekah where for one hour they discussed the placement of 5 side stitches and came up with 3 different prototypes to test each position.

At the time they launched the version 1 pocket nappy, Jenn had been successfully manufacturing Hemp Babies in St. Louis for about 3 years. Hemp Babies nappy boosters are all made by local women on a piece by piece basis and are still made that way today. These are all Jenn’s mom friends who are able to work from home, around their growing families, whilst making money sewing for Hemp Babies. 

But for the pocket nappy, it was a lot more complex so they needed a factory based solution and they found the perfect facility in Colorado, so a lot of the early nappies were made in Colorado. Whilst at the time of first going there, this facility had about 20 other clients, it soon became clear they had to let those other clients go and just focus on sewing bumGenius as it had become a rip-roaring success. Even so, within a few years BumGenius had outgrown this facility as well and needed more factories to try and keep up with demand.

This is when their Egypt factory, run by Rachel, came online and supplied most of the rest of the world nappies whilst USA was still sourced from their Colorado factories. The Egypt factory was a fair trade employer, offering a fair wage to local people and training them up. It also provided lots of charitable work providing local homeless girls with sewing machines and training. 

Tensions in Egypt made Jenn nervous about being reliant on production there. So after a few years, Jenn realised her one ambition, which she was told she would never be able to do. To open her own sewing facility in St. Louis. All the business experts told her to outsource to cheap foreign labour, but Jenn wanted to be proudly Made in USA and offer local jobs in St.Louis. After about 10 years of planning this facility opened a few years ago and the Egypt production was moved there. Colorado is still going, but the owners are retiring and all of that production will also be moved to St.Louis.

The microfiber inserts are still made in China, as this is where this material is made. Jenn hopes one day to replace them with USA made inserts and knowing Jenn with her drive and passion, this will happen!

Next read which bumGenius nappy is best!

How Many BumGenius Nappies do I need?

Generally we advise 20-25 bumGenius nappies are needed but this depends on several things.

This depends on many factors, the age of your baby or child, how many children you have, which type of bumGenius nappy you have, how often you plan to wash and what your drying facilities are like.

What is the Age of your child in bumGenius nappies?

For younger children you need more nappies, especially for newborn babies. For newborn babies we advise at least 20 nappies, and probably closer to 25. Newborn babies poo little and often, especially breastfed babies, so will need changing more frequently. Changing more frequently means either washing more often (daily, but this is not really feasible if you have just given birth!), or more nappies.

For older children you do not need as many. For a child aged 6-12 months you would still need about 20 nappies. For a child aged 12 months-18 months we would recommend about 15-20 nappies. For a child aged 18 months plus we recommend 12-15 nappies. Again, this all depends on your individual child and how often they require changing, so this is just a broad rule of thumb to follow.

How many children do you have?

The more children you have, the more nappies you need. Thankfully all of the bumgenius nappies, except the littles, are onesize so should fit all of your children at the same time. 

For more children you don’t need to double the nappies for each child, more like add about 60%. So if you have 20 nappies for child one, usually adding 10-15 nappies bringing you up to 30-35 should last for your second child. This is because the older child requires less and less as they get bigger. Of course the exception to this is twins and generally you should look to more or less double your stash if you have twins, or just slightly under. 

As you have 2 or more in cloth, you will be washing more often as your nappy bucket will be filled more quickly, this means you can get away with less as the nappies are sitting in dirty buckets for a shorter time frame.

How often are you washing?

The above recommendations are based on washing every 2 days. We don’t recommend leaving it much longer than that because your nappies will begin to stink and stain if left sitting around for long periods.

If you plan to wash more frequently and are super organised, you can adjust down accordingly. For just wet nappies (not soiled) you can wash with your towel wash etc as long as you don’t use fabric conditioner so this means you can get away with less nappies!

Which type of bumGenius nappy do you have?

Generally speaking the bumgenius pocket is the quickest drying nappy, followed by the freetime then the elemental. For slower drying nappies you need to add 3-5 more nappies to your stash to allow for longer drying times. So if you have elementals or are planning on buying bumGenius elemental, add extra to your stash. For freetime just 1-3 extra should suffice.

What are your drying facilities like?

If you have great drying facilities then great, you can get away with less nappies. If you have poor drying facilities again you might need to add a couple of extra nappies to your stash to help for those times when you are waiting on nappies to dry.

To Conclude

You can see why we say 20-25 is an ideal starting point for a newborn, then go through each of the above scenarios and adjust accordingly. Or just get 20-25 and see how you get on! That' s how many nappies you need, how many you want is an entirely different question!